Director: Ted Kotcheff
Starring: Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Silverman, Catherine Mary Stewart, Terry Kiser
Running Time: 97 minutes
Synopsis: Junior analysts Larry and Rick (Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman) uncover financial irregularities at the giant Manhattan-based insurance company where they work. Their boss Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser), who is secretly pilfering the money, invites the young men to his Hamptons house for the weekend with intentions to kill them, but his Mafia associates murder him instead. At the Hamptons, Larry and Rick find Bernie's dead body but pretend that all is well, and proceed to enjoy a party weekend while Rick pursues a romance with intern Gwen (Catherine Mary Stewart).
What Works Well: Terry Kiser delivers one of the all-time-best performances as a movie corpse, and the few good laughs feature the dead Bernie's inopportune appearances at awkward moments.
What Does Not Work As Well: This is an interminable one-joke comedy mostly consisting of a corpse being shuffled from here to there and back again, with satire too haughty a concept for the juvenile antics. Brought to life (and death) by systemic over-acting, the witless script runs out of steam quickly and is hopelessly dependent on caricaturish behaviour and abject stupidity. The material leans heavily on poor taste and is probably hilarious for pre-teen boys (although the gag involving unintended necrophilia may mercifully fly over their head), but for everyone else, this is one long and lost weekend.
Key Quote:
Larry: What kind of a host invites you to his house for the weekend and dies on you?
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